Renewal of Light
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash. Harry and Draco celebrate Yule. COMPLETE.


**Title: **Renewal of Light

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco

**Rating: **PG

**Warnings: **Fluff, established relationship

**Wordcount: **1300

**Summary: **Harry and Draco celebrate Yule.

**Author's Notes: **An Advent fic for Lori Nightblade Ravenheart, who asked for an H/D fic with a Yule celebration.

**Renewal of Light**

"We give thanks for the return of light," said Draco, and cast a handful of the specially-treated dried rose petals on the fire. His mother was the one who had taught him to make the potion that he had smeared on the rose petals. In her family, she said, Yule was a ritual left mainly to the women. Maybe the men thought they were too important for such a holiday.

But Draco, as he watched the fire—built on the body of a single great log, hollowed out and surrounded by a brass cage in the shape of a phoenix with wide-spread wings—change colors to green and blue and white because of the rose petals, thought that everyone could use such a ritual of thanksgiving. Maybe some people just needed an extra excuse to celebrate it.

Harry leaned against his shoulder, and Draco cast him a fond glance. For someone who had never celebrated Yule, or only done it as Christmas, until he started dating Draco, Harry had absorbed Draco's love for the holiday fast.

"We give thanks for the beauty of darkness," said Harry, and cast a handful of his own rose petals. They filtered through the cage's outline, and turned the fire a rich, velvety black. Draco squeezed Harry's hand and tilted his head back to study the sky for a moment.

They were out in the back garden of the Manor, under a starry sky in which a full moon also hovered, the best of good omens for Yule. Draco chose to take it as a good sign for Harry's first Yule, too.

They were utterly alone. His parents had gone off for their own Yule fire, and Harry's friends would celebrate Christmas with him in a few days. Draco thought that was one reason Harry had been so delighted when Draco told him about this ritual. He would get to rejoice more than once.

"We give thanks for the fire that burns in our veins and warms us," said Draco, and this time he untied a red ribbon that he'd worn on his finger for most of the afternoon and threw it in. The fire puffed greedily as it consumed it, and for a second, Draco thought he caught a subtle, twisting sleekness in the flames.

"We give thanks for the water that runs through the springs beneath the ground," Harry said. He picked up the small silver bowl of water that had stood beside him on the ground while he and Draco built up the fire. He drank a small gulp of water from it, swished it around in his mouth, then spat it at the flames.

Draco could hear him catch his breath, but the water didn't put out the fire, as it never did if the ritual was done properly. Draco couldn't help smiling smugly at him. "I told you that you wouldn't put it out," he said, and reached down to gather a handful of the rich earth right in front of his feet. It still crumbled softly, despite the stiff, winter-dried grass atop it.

"Were you supposed to say things like that as part of the ritual?" Harry asked, and nodded to the fire. There was a definite flash from within it now, as though a piled treasure was catching gleams from some distant light that neither of them could see. "It doesn't look as though it's affected the fire well."

"I told you what was supposed to happen with the fire," Draco said calmly, and then cast the grass and dirt into the flames. "We give thanks for the earth that we walk on, the sturdy earth that bears us up."

This time, there was a deep spark from within the flames that turned into a shiny, almost reflective blue, and Harry started. Draco nudged him in the ribs with one elbow, and Harry nodded, looking dazed, and opened his mouth to suck down a draft of the air that was circulating around them. Not breathing, he leaned over the flames and let it out again.

"We give thanks for the air that plays through our lungs and binds us to the winds of the world," he said.

This time, the flames glittered down into the log, and then a sweet, sharp note came from the fire, as if from a misstrung harp. Draco put a comforting arm on Harry's shoulder when he reached for his wand. He might leap about if Draco let him, but Draco was determined to hold him still and have him watch the result of the ritual.

The fire, called and encouraged by their gifts and their praise, rose from the cleft log and filed the brass cage. Pure flame curled behind the empty eyes of the artificial phoenix, and made them live. Feathers of red and gold fringed the motionless metal wings, and they quivered and turned. A real phoenix gazed at them for a moment, red as fire, with eyes as blue as water, and belly feathers of purest black like the earth, and tail feathers that shaded to the invisibility of air, noitceable only because the flames wavered behind them in a heat haze.

And then the cage lifted from the fire as the phoenix took it away, flying and circling into the starry sky. Where the beams of the full moon crossed its flight, it flickered and grew stronger. Draco smiled. The moon would give it power, and it would soar all night long, before coming back to Malfoy Manor when the sun rose and marked the end of the longest night and a tilt back towards the longer days.

"Draco," Harry whispered, leaning against him. "You didn't tell me about _that_."

"I told you the fire would form a phoenix if we did the ritual right," said Draco, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

"I thought you meant—the cage," Harry replied, his eyes still on the bird cutting the night like a red comet. "I didn't know you meant—that."

Draco gave Harry a smile that he knew Harry wouldn't look at, because he was so busy watching the phoenix. But that didn't matter, not when Draco had the pleasure of introducing Harry to magic so profound and special that Harry was still gaping after it for a long time when there was no chance that he could see a glimpse of that trailing red light.

Harry had known about magic from the time he was eleven. He sometimes said there was nothing about it that would surprise him anymore, either because he'd seen so much danger and disgusting carnage, or because he knew so many ordinary spells. He didn't seem to know what a phoenix he was himself, surrounded by an aura that made it hard for Draco to take his eyes from him.

To have shown him something new, something pure and wondrous that would renew the light in his eyes, filled Draco with a warmth no fire could match.

"Come on," he said, tugging gently on Harry's arm. "We have a long night to fill. What do you want to do?"

Harry turned his head, and there was something of the sleekness the phoenix's neck had had when he did. Draco licked his lips. His mouth was dry, salty.

"Oh, I can think of a _few _things," Harry whispered, and now he was the one who smiled with the promise of magic as he drew Draco inside.

**The End.**


End file.
